Movies.

Second Opinion

Catholic Church Has Been In The Ratings Game For Years

April 07, 1996|By Glen Elsasser, Tribune Staff Writer.

NEW YORK — Henry Herx began his moviegoing career at the Will Rogers Theatre on Chicago's Northwest Side in the late 1930s. He watched second-run flicks there, catching his first glimpses of Bette Davis, Henry Fonda and John Wayne at Saturday matinees.

This was the start of a lifelong fascination with film that now, unexpectedly, provides insights on the television industry's debate over and implementation of a rating system for its programs.

That's because as the industry proceeds, it may eventually encounter an adversary that has long dogged Hollywood: the Catholic Church.

The nation's Catholic bishops have issued their own ratings since 1936, having found the industry's efforts to control the content of films wanting. And if TV adopts a system comparable to the current movie rating system, the church is poised to expose what it considers the shortcomings.

"We are very interested, very concerned about what they do," said Herx, the veteran director of the bishops' Office of Film and Broadcast. "If we were consulted, we would have something to add to the ratings."

Herx prepares the weekly movie ratings. These serve as an early warning system, especially for parents of school-age children, about the content of new movies. The Catholic News Service distributes the ratings and, since 1988, separate ratings covering television and home videos.

Last month the bishops decided to continue for a year a pilot program offering movie reviews on a toll-free telephone line: 800-311-4CCC. From January to mid-March, nearly 30,000 people called.

The development comes as the television industry, bowing to political pressure, has agreed to devise a rating system that would curtail excessive sex and violence in programming. Still to come is the V-chip, a technical device that would enable parents to block undesirable programs.

"The heart of the issue really is, people want to control what's on the screen and what's on TV," said Professor Gregory Black, chairman of communications studies at the University of Missouri at Kansas City. "People today make the same arguments about TV that they made about movies in the 1930s."

In his book "Hollywood Censored: Morality Codes, Catholics, and the Movies" (Cambridge University Press), Black documents how the church openly pressured the industry from both pulpit and pew--for decades pious Catholics took an annual pledge condemning "immoral" and "indecent" motion pictures.

"We don't play that kind of role anymore," said Herx, who described his office's function as primarily an information service. "In the 1930s and 1940s, that was the role invited by the motion picture industry."

Another layer of regulation came from states and municipalities. As early as 1907 Chicago enacted an ordinance requiring a police permit before any film could be shown in the city, a system of censorship that lasted until the 1960s.

Since 1968 the Motion Picture Association of America has policed the content of movies with a rating system of its own. The MPAA is the successor to the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America Inc.--the so-called Hays Office, named for Will Hays, its longtime boss (1922-45) and a prominent Republican politician from Indiana.

With the advent of sound movies, the Hays Office adopted a production code in the early 1930s--with considerable advice and consent from prominent Catholics--dedicated to upholding traditional family values and the triumph of good over evil.

Yet the church remained ever vigilant, ready in the early years to back up its censure of offending films with a boycott by a sympathetic Catholic organization. By the 1960s the industry was forced to find an alternative as the production code became widely flouted with sexually frank language and nudity in such critically acclaimed movies as "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" and "Blow-Up."

In recent years the MPAA ratings have evolved into five categories: G, for general audiences; PG, parental guidance suggested because some material may not be suitable for children; PG-13, parents strongly cautioned because of violence, nudity or language not suitable for children under 13; R, restricted, no one under 17 admitted without parent or guardian; and NC-17, no children under 17 admitted.

But Herx still finds it flawed.

"The problem arises especially with films rated PG-13," explained Herx, a layman who works out of a cluttered Manhattan office. "Sometimes the MPAA thinks this material is fine for adolescents, but we find it's suitable only for adults."

Herx pointed out that most secular reviewers have an adult audience in mind when they critique movies. "They look at a movie like last year's `Clueless' without any concern on how kids might see it," he said.

"Clueless" satirized teenage life in Beverly Hills, which is depicted as a clothesrack culture of ditsy conformists and, in the words of its protagonists, "hymenally challenged" virgins. Herx's office rated it O or morally objectionable, while the MPAA gave it a PG-13.